


if you aim (go for the heart)

by hoasen



Series: tears that have fallen (aren't mine to weep) [1]
Category: Naruto, 文豪ストレイドッグス | Bungou Stray Dogs
Genre: Gen, Hatake Kakashi-centric, Non-Linear Narrative, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Past Relationship(s), Port Mafia Nakajima Atsushi (Bungou Stray Dogs)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-09
Updated: 2019-09-29
Packaged: 2020-08-13 02:28:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,058
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20166649
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hoasen/pseuds/hoasen
Summary: Kakashi wakes up in a body not of his own, with sunset eyes and choppy white bangs and no chakra flowing through his veins.He wakes up as Nakajima Atsushi.





	1. so hurry up and bite (whoever you found)

**Author's Note:**

> product of too many sleepless nights [insert screaming here]
> 
> no beta we die like me :D

"You're a miserable thing."

Today's food is particularly good. Maybe there's been a change in the chef? The bread's crisp too.

"Say that again?"

No, he hasn't heard of anybody from the kitchen being fired lately

"I said you were miserable, brat."

"Ah," he takes a bite of his sandwich, "Is that so?"

The eggs seemed nicely cooked. Fluffier than usual.

"You're lucky I've haven't killed you yet."

"Very."

Really, these sardines are _ divine. _He hasn't had something like these since back in the Before. Even then, the Daimyo's feast pales in comparison to this.

"Those rags are too good for you."

"Mmh."

Such good food.

-

Kakashi dies a peaceful death. It's a luxury in the shinobi works. A slow, quiet death at the age of eighty-seven.

This now, this wasn't natural.

Human beings were not meant to wake up after their hearts stops beating, their blood stopped flowing.

_ Did Obito wake up like this too? _

It doesn't feel like his body, not when the warm hum of energy flowing beneath his skin has disappeared. The skin of his arms doesn't feel like his. Too young, too smooth. The scars of war not yet etched into every sense of being.

There is silver hair that lays flat on his head and eyes the color of dying suns. 

This world he wakes up to is entirely devoid of chakra. The humming energy beneath his skin vanishes replaced by a quiet feeling of _ another. _It is familiar, yet not.

(_ Your name is Hatake Kakashi, 086843 in the Ninja Registry, student of the Yondaime Hokage. You are the Rokudaime and you've lived through two wars. You are the son of the White Fang, you are the last of your clan. _

_ There is a plant in your apartment, a pack of dogs, and your books. Your dogs are named Pakkun and Shiba and Bull and, and, and. _

_ You had three students. _

_ Your name is Hatake Kakashi. _

_ You are Hatake Kakashi. _

_ You are Hatake Kakashi. _

_ You are--- _)

Nakajima Atsushi they called him. Nakajima Atsushi the orphan who lies on cold concrete floor while a man white tells him the ones who'd abandoned him had done worse. Time doesn't pass on the concrete floors, to the boy, perhaps it has been forever.

He suppose 'Nakajima Atsushi' would've stayed, and Kakashi wouldn't have blamed the boy. The world outside the barred windows is a stranger whose eyes don't shine and Kakashi wouldn't have have blamed the boy for fearing.

But that boy is dead and a dead man whose eyes don't shine wears his skin.

The dead man walks out of the building, he is fine. His sandals are torn and the rags he wore reeked of age old stains but he is fine.

He walks and walks and walks and walks to nowhere and nothing in particular. The fish from aimless streams burns in the fire before rain falls to fast. Kakashi is used to this.

Roads he walks along filled cars he doesn't quite recognize, the world doused in calm he doesn't quite get and smells he doesn't quite remember. If he jumps, he falls down. If he calls for lightning the sound of a thousand birds, he fails.

A medical mask covers his lower face, muffling his breath. There is a feeling of calm when he puts it on and he sees green jumpsuits, sunshine hair with ocean blue eyes.

Rusty knives hiding under his sleeves spoke of lurching black coats under the earth like the kindness of winter. Wooden sticks writes names that don't exist, trailing behind him like specters.

All the power twisting beneath his skin grows louder as daylight fades into indigo skies. There are stars that hung in formations he recognized (and wishes are left unsaid).

The moon is bright, nearly full.

Kakashi looks up.

-

He forgets.

-

Glass towers reaching for the skies and people walk below. It smells of everything, sounds of everything.

The road he walks takes him past muddy rivers where cats stare. Buildings slump down here, with alleys where the walls watched and blinking street lights.

When the wind bites too hard, Kakashi snatches a coat off of a sleeping man with bandages over one eye. It was too easy, almost second nature.

The coat is heavy on his shoulders, too big for his frame, the material stiff and reeks of an all to familiar smell. He suppose this is only appropriate. 

The rusty knives are laughing. 

For all a thousand jutsu were worth, Kakashi's true strength had never been it. Nor was it the red pinwheel eye. 

Friend-Killer Kakashi was only as good as the shadows surrounding him after all. ANBU Hound even more so. The roots can't drag him underneath there, the pebbles thrown won't catch up.

Eyes watch with a lowered stare, whispers pass on like folklore.

_ "Port Mafia's getting awfully brave, aren't they?" _

_ "Shhh! They'll hear you!" _

_ "Nah, heard they're growing soft these days. The head's a piece of work." _

There is an order whose hands circle necks Kakashi acknowledged. Men hold their heads forward and adverts their eyes.

In a way, it feels like home.

So he walks and walks and walks. The men whom money lies in his hands don't look twice, shop owners glance down when bills fall on the register. 

It was a while until Kakashi notices the shadow trailing him and curses himself. The shadow was nothing like the lightning in the clouds or red dawns in rain or the tree's foundations. Nothing the Leaf's Copy Nin would've had trouble with. No, but Kakashi wasn't that man anymore, too dull from the years of quiet.

His steps don't quicken nor does his face change. The years ingrained on fields of flying knives were still there, despite it all, lurking under his subconscious. 

The part of him that was ANBU Hound screams to take him and the shadower to a dark alley, the ending was implied. A diplomatic, post-Naruto Rokudaime says to confront with a closed-eyed smile.

Neither of those would work, too much uncertainty.

Kakashi instead continues, walks to nowhere and nothing in particular. His hands deep in the stolen black coat's pockets as he watches the sky tumble by.

The shadow is vigilant in its pursuit, always maintaining a distance. Not without flaws though, as the gaps between movements weaves enough of a picture. Fluttering bandages and a mop of brown hair blinks before it's gone.

Incompetence like this in the Before was a straight road to interrogation cellars. 

Even as the hours tick by and Kakashi's path coming in circles once more, the shadow stays. It wasn't until dawn when he sits by the lake eating a half-eaten lunch box he nicked off of some unsuspecting fool when the shadow makes itself known.

"Isn't it a pleasant day?" the shadow---the bandaged man---sits next to Kakashi who continues eating.

"Hmn," he doesn't turn.

"That's a funny coat you have on you, ah!" even without looking, Kakashi could tell the man wears a grin.

Kakashi's voice was quiet, almost hoarse, "That's kind of you, but I couldn't tell you where it's from though."

"Technicalities, technicalities---now, aren't your parents worried their ickle wittle son is out here?"

This is a trap.

He gives a grunt and returns to his food, ignoring the bandaged man.

"Oh? Are you looking for the arms of sweet lady death?"

"No."

"A pity!"

"It's unfortunate."

Perhaps the theatrics should've stirred deep-seated nostalgia that clings onto the back of his subconscious but it doesn't. 

"Osamu Dazai," the bandaged man states. A piece of candy was thrown his way (which he tries his best not to catch), "Your's?"

It was less of a request and more of a command with iron below those words. Something he had spent far too much time with, from himself or no.

_ Hatake Kakashi. _"Nakajima Atsushi."

The man pats Kakashi's back and the boy (who isn't really a boy) finches. He doesn't miss the shine in Osamu Dazai's eye as the man watches. Suddenly Kakashi's back in the Chunin Exams again, back faced a against a whispering crowd and scheming village elders. 

"Now! I have a proposition for you, Atsushi-kun!"

Finally, Kakashi looks at the man, then at his surroundings, carefully taking in the high arches and small alleys. Osamu Dazai though, had not been what he expected. The immature tone with a teenager's skin in the same body as someone who Kakashi is sure has lifetimes of death at his heels.

It was almost like looking into a mirror.

"Oh my," Kakashi looks at the sky, and offers a closed-eye smile, "It seems I've lost track of time, Old Lady Tsume would be awfully worried."

There are men in black suits---same shade as the coat Kakashi wears---hiding behind careful crevices.

Osamu Dazai's hands grips Kakashi's arms and the man repeats his statement, "This will only take a second, boy."

"Ah, Old Lady Tsume is waiting sir."

The man twitches at Kakashi's last word, too subtle for anyone less than military dictator to tell.

"Atsushi-kun! I am in need of a new apprentice!" the man tugs the sleeves of the black coat Kakashi wears, "Looks like you've already declared allegiance, lucky me---unless?"

He knows a threat when he sees one.

-

The coat, he soon learns, is a symbol no less than that of flak jackets and leaf headband. Osamu Dazai takes him into a lion's den where black coats cover frail bodies and makes no attempt to take the coat back. 

"Akutagawa-kun!" 

Perhaps Kakashi should've recognized this tone, recognized how a mentor calls to their student. Recognized how Osamu Dazai warps the words and the fear that quickly flashes through black-haired teen's grey eyes.

"Dazai-san, your report is late. Nakahara-san has already met the Boss and he needs to see you later," it was a robotic voice, stale yet of apprehension through gritted teeth.

The teen---Akutagawa---was a pale thing. All skin and bones covered by the same black coat and black eyes drowning in resentment. A somber air clung to the teen, intense in a way like that of stirring dragons. Kakashi doesn't want to see the face of a boy with red pinwheel eyes and a seething seal. He does nonetheless.

"Who cares about the Chibi," the bandaged man waves his hands, "Now, Akutagawa-kun! Meet my new apprentice."

It happens in slow motion, as if the spinning red eye was still lodged in his left socket. A growl escapes Akutagawa's mouth that makes the brown-haired man quirk an eyebrow and hands pulls Kakashi to the front. The grip was too strong for his malnourished body to pull away even against a strike of black that lunges at him.

Kakashi puts his weight on his left leg and leans back against the man's body. He hears a slight surprise as the both of them dodge the oncoming attack.

"Maa, Dazai-san, what interesting subordinates you have," said Kakashi with a half-hearted smile.

Akutagawa scowls. Perhaps Kakashi's seen the conversation that plays out between the bandaged man and the teen before, but on different players. It settles into his heart uneasily.

"What do you mean that---that _ thing _\---is better than me!" a scent of malice falls onto the air.

Then the humor wipes itself from the bandaged man's face and Kakashi dodges small projectiles with a frown. There was no sound aside from the crackling of fireworks? Some kind of katon? (He makes a note to look into it later). A small machine was pointed at him, another at a bleeding, seething Akutagawa.

"Seems like you've got a lot more to learn from Atsushi-kun than me," Osamu Dazai coos in a way that sends a sense of impending doom down his spine, "Don't you think so?"

There was no response from Akutagawa and his new mentor only sighs. A resignation, a casual disappointment that only makes furious black eyes bore into Kakashi only further.

If any of those decades had taught him anything, it would be this. Kakashi is well of his position right now and the heavy black coat on his shoulders. He is weary, but it doesn't mean a thing. Weariness never stopped the mask on his face or the blades in his hands.

"I take it that I'll leave Old Lady Tsume waiting then."

"Oh? You catch on quick," _ (Danzo) _Osamu Dazai places a hand on Kakashi's shoulders, "Now, Atsushi-kun, follow me."

"Akutagawa-san?"

"---will be fine."

At the mention of his name falling out of Kakashi's mouth, the black-haired teen glares, then grips his wound. 

He knows a threat when he sees one.


	2. i see a Pinocchio wearing a poncho (it's me, some time ago)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> a fight, a mission, and Kakashi (but he's not) is tired.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it's been two chapters but I already went past the intended word limit

Akutagawa had been, in fact, 'fine'. Limping on his left side slightly, but fine. 

So far, there's been surprisingly few attempts on Kakashi's life by the teen since Osamu Dazai happened. They weren't much of a danger anyhow. Akutagawa, while being proficient, was as good as a typical low-ranked jonin. Even Izumo and Kotetsu wouldn't have too much trouble.

Was it out of fear or respect of the man in bandages, he doesn't know. With a snarl, Akutagawa keeps his head lowered in the boy's presence. Kakashi thinks it's endearing  _ (like a starved puppy) _ so he doesn't say a thing.

It's quite obvious he's been saddled with a new student from the first words Akutagawa speaks to him after the earlier incident.

"I refuse to call you sensei, brat."

Osamu Dazai must have done something again.

It was a title that brings too much baggage, implications of a hole deep in his heart Kakashi would rather leave behind. He makes a sign of agreement that only seems to irritate the black-haired teen further.

"That's not nice,  _ Akutagawa-kun _ ," he twirls a stolen knife, "I'm an old man—can't you tell from the hair?"

The snarling, the glaring, it gets worse with his words. It's not how Sasuke would react to Kakashi's taunting, but the highly unsubtle seeping bloodlust—killing intent—was there and all too similar.

"I'll end you if you say another word."

Those in the back give him looks akin to pity or amusement as if Kakashi was the metaphorical rabbit walking into the metaphorical wolf's den. A load of rubbish. The Hatake are wolves, hunting dogs, first and foremost.

"Another word."

Akutagawa lunges. 

_"Rashomon!"_

Kakashi gives them a closed-eyed smile and steps to the side, evading whatever black weapons coming at him. The people in the back looked around, clearly too used to this but do nothing. 

It isn't a jutsu, Kakashi could confidently say.

"Interesting skill you have there!" he swoops down, the black weapon coming out of Akutagawa's black coat cuts a chunk of hair off.

Still, he smiles with all the apathy he could manage.

-

Osamu Dazai had disappeared after slipping a slip of paper into the boy's coat and dropping Kakashi off to what seems like a base of operations. To run some talks or whatnot, Kakashi doesn't question it. He was not Naruto, or Sasuke, or Sakura. Questioning superiors was bad form, a ticket to punishment.

It was an impressive building, made out of glass and metals like those surrounding it. A looming sense of unspoken terror punctuates every movement in the building. From the white lights overhead that's more complex than it looks and the quick shuffling of silent people.

There had been an overworked secretary of sorts sent to brief Kakashi in the place of the bandaged man. He introduces himself as "Sakaguchi Ango" with a heavy sigh and even heavier briefcase. 

"Alright, Nakajima-san," the secretary pulls out some forms and a pen, "Your age?"

"Fourteen last time I checked."

"Previous affiliations?"

"An orphanage a bit west."

"Birthday?"

A shrug.

"And this… Old Lady Tsume?"

Kakashi eyes crinkled, "Ah! This cute Pomeranian I found walking around, had the fluffiest tail you know."

"Alright."

The questions continue like this for the next three or so hours with Sakaguchi slowly running out of patience. Years as a political figurehead had put him through worse, this is nothing. He's gotten more information out of the man than the man did with him and Kakashi thinks Sakaguchi knew that.

Well, the technique wasn't bad, Kakashi would give the secretary that. The man must have been this organization's equivalent of Intelligence or T&I, though the later held interesting implications if true.

It dawns on him the situation he placed himself in.  _ 'Secret Underground Organization' Port Mafia _ is nothing more than a gathering of criminals, a seedy den of liars. Escaped one hellhole to land in another.

The technology was more advanced than the Before's, two decades or so ahead. They tell him he speaks outdated accents and he has potential  _ (to kill) _ . Cars are explained, along with the vast world filled with languages he can't comprehend.

_ (Sakaguchi Ango doesn't speak when you ask of black claws behind a black-haired teen.) _

He is in the city of Yokohama in mainland Japan. He speaks Japanese and is Japanese and they're searching for proof Kakashi ever existed at all.

When night falls, he's alone once more on a ratty mattress _ (but Kakashi doubts it, paranoid organizations are his specialty after all). _ At this moment though, Kakashi has a small locked room  _ (provided via Sakaguchi) _ on the edge of the slums.

-

He forgets.

-

Kakashi wakes up to clawed wallpaper and blood-stained floors. The door's still locked but the curtains slightly parted. There's an ache, deep within his bones that burns in the way chakra exhaustion would, down to the drowning sores. 

Ash clings to his body like the Uchiha's pyre and pieces of his skin have gone missing. This,  _ this  _ had been a product of his own manifestations, from the smell of iron to the broken furniture.

_ (Perhaps if you were to see yourself, curled up on a bloody floor, you would think 'Sakumo' and a choked 'Father'. Or maybe you wouldn't be able to at all, a body too numb for words of sentimentalities). _

The coat stays the same yet manages to be heavier than he remembers. He unlocks the door with a ratty key, stepping into the morning fog. It's putrid, bearing the smell of rot and ash and smoke—nothing like the land in between trees and flames. 

There's nobody out on the streets this early, only the presence of metal carriages called 'cars' care to accompany him. The paper Osamu Dazai leaves was an address that prompts a sigh from the secretary. A time was written on there also, but it was irrelevant. 

Where the paper leads to a bridge and a river that stank of sewage, of the ashy fog below. He's been here before.

"Atsushi-kun!" Osamu Dazai smiles but no amusement reaches his eyes nor voice, "Nice of you to show up on this lovely day! Even if you're hours late."

He hears a familiar growl in the back but doesn't turn around.

Kakashi mirrors the bandaged man, scratching the back of his neck sheepishly, "You see, a big white cat cross the street on my way here so I had to take the long route around."

"A pity."

"It's unfortunate."

Osamu Dazai leads him beneath the arch bridge where cracks ran along like veins under their feet. There's already a two chairs awaiting them and cups of tea across one another. Kakashi doesn't touch the tea.

He leans into the chairs, letting the exhaustion set in. A show of weakness on Kakashi's part, one that lights something in Osamu Dazai's eye. 

"Ango told you everything?" he nods, "We can begin then—Akutagawa-kun, the files!"

The black-haired teen with the same foul mood as always appears before them, papers in hand. Kakashi notes the badly hidden bruise under the teen's jaws where his fist had landed earlier. The bandaged man glances through each sheet merrily, flipping through the papers as if he had done this a thousand times before. Reading the details of a client with a bit of a problem in their hands and too much at stake.

It awakens an age old instinct in Kakashi he thought he'd lost. Suddenly, Kakashi was before the Sandaime once more, a flak jacket on his chest and hitai-ate around his _ (Obito's) _ pinwheel eye.

Kakashi doesn't know whether to laugh or cry as the brown-haired man went on.

_ An assassination _ . It was that of all things, that which follows him here.

_(Your hand's deep into Rin's chest. A trickle of blood runs down her bruised_, _apologetic_ _lips. The chirping of a thousand birds drown out any sound._

_ No. Please no. No no no no no no no no no no no no no no no no. _

_ Why were you not the one to be crushed by boulders the size of mountains? Why was it you who survives this bloody war? _

_ Obito, he _ — _ ) _

There's a satisfaction that paints Osamu Dazai's face when Kakashi takes the files with badly hidden shaking. ANBU Hound lowers his head, letting the choppy white bangs cover his eyes. A scoff escapes Akutagawa's lips that earn a raised eyebrow from the bandaged man. 

"I will leave then," Kakashi says, adjusting the strap of his mask before turning around.

"Wait! Atsushi-kun, don't forget!"

He whips his head around to see the bandaged man pushing Akutagawa towards him. As a supervisor or a death flag, Kakashi supposes it's both but he accepts it with a sigh. Akutagawa on the other hand, was a mass of barely concealed rage holding on to the tethers of fear Osamu Dazai instilled.

Kakashi's well aware he shouldn't be following the man's whims down a path waist deep in blood. Nakajima Atsushi is a blank slate, one free of stains and unspoken rules. One that promises freedom. 

It's too late to turn back now, Kakashi of all people should know what these kinds of organizations are like. Traitors no matter what level is crushed under the heels of a man on the high chair and his minions.

A few mobsters who's mouth ran too far, nothing high profile. A mission like this wouldn't even be worth ANBU Hound or his team's time. 

_ (You've killed more at fourteen than this and perhaps Osamu Dazai sees a shadow of it, lurking behind your eyes.) _

Akutagawa walks behind him at a steady pace. When they were out of the bandaged man's range, the full force of the black-haired teen's bloodlust comes down like falling meteorites when the universe aligns itself. 

Kakashi tries his best not to be gutted by the teen's weapon hiding in the shadows.

That black weapon was indeed curious, nothing like what Kakashi's seen before. It's in tandem to Akutagawa's will and erupts from his coat with the slightest hint of a red aura surrounding it. Most likely not chakra, or anything similar to it.

"Akutagawa-kun, please follow my lead," said Kakashi.

He doesn't get any other reply than a low grunt he reckons must be due to something Osamu Dazai said.

They make it to an alleyway where a 'meeting' was supposed to be held, but Kakashi knows better. The other side probably understands it as well. Not that it mattered, of course.

It's eerie silence that greets them—oh, who is he kidding. There are figures watching, two behind a trash can and the rest from windows that line the side of the alley. Really, ah, these people don't even try.

Muscle memory was a strange concept, according to all existing medical text he had heard of, it shouldn't have transferred to this body. Sakura would've thrown a fit. Hatake Kakashi's abilities to throw a knife undetected, one honed through decades of practice, shouldn't be Nakajima Atsushi's to wield.

Yet it was and bodies drop like dead flies from windows even Akutagawa hasn't noticed. 

"Maa, what a nice day," Kakashi laughs, closing his eyes and ignoring the sudden drop in temperature, "Is Yuu-chan here?"

_ "What are you  _ doing _ , Nakajima?" _

Kakashi continues on, a desperate urge to reach for Icha Icha claws at him, "See, my superior is desperately in need of a companion at the moment. It seems like none other than our dear Yuu-chan has been selected."

"Bravo, then," a figure steps out from the shadows, clapping, "What would I have the pleasure of today, young boy?"

A woman in a bastardized shrine maiden's robes walks out. She carries an aura of command wherever she steps, of power brewing underneath unlike the slow crawl of terror Osamu Dazai possesses.

Still, she is nothing in retrospect.

Kakashi motions for Akutagawa to stay where he is and reaches for a stolen kitchen under his coat.

How he missed his Icha Icha.

-

"Three shots," Akutagawa throws the same machine-like weapon the bandaged man had used, "Dazai-san's order."

_ ("A gun," Sakaguchi Ango says, pulling one out of his too heavy briefcase.) _

There are traditions to follow, even in hell.

Learning them feels like a betrayal that cuts deeper than any blade and Kakashi bites his tongue. Akutagawa watches him with disdain, a warped superiority.

When Osamu Dazai greets them at the bridge, there's too much glee painted on that face for comfort. Kakashi gets handed a wad of bills  _ (in a currency that's not a ryo)  _ and promptly told to come again the next day. ANBU Hound nods.

"Congratulations on your first kill, by the way!" it's a smile with too many lies, an implication Kakashi rather not acknowledge.

"No," he looks up.

"Hm?"

"That was not my first kill."

There's not much else to be said and morbid curiosity fills a smile. He sees no mirth behind the bandaged man's eyes, only a sorrow Kakashi doesn't linger on.

-

That night, he sees mismatched eyes and cerulean ones and ferocious green ones. They tell him kind things, stories of a long-forgotten past as he watches time past on the memorial stone. The village moves on without a glance behind the trail of bodies it leaves.

A line of stone faces watch them, he is among it.

Visitors come and go but a ghost remains. A ghost wielding a scythe in an orange, swirling mask stands to his right, covering a scarred eye. A too-young brown-haired girl smiles and a dog barks. Blond hair and cerulean eyes past by, followed by crimson locks and violet eyes and wide smiles.

It doesn't hurt as much as it should and Kakashi doesn't know how to feel.

-

Nothing stops Akutagawa's antagonism, a perpetual cycle of growling and snarling. Osamu Dazai's presence only makes sure the assassination attempts were kept to a minimum.

So when the bandaged man makes himself scarce, Kakashi walks with a knife in hand. A precaution from the Before that brings him little comfort yet stopping leaves too much uneasiness.

He walks until the black shadow makes themselves more obvious. The shadow wasn't Osamu Dazai, the frame was too small and doesn't move with an assured competence the bandaged man did.

"You can come out, Akutagawa-kun."

The black weapon shoots out again, aiming straight for Kakashi's heart. It doesn't come close to hitting.

More sighs escape Kakashi's lip, "I'll rather this not take forever, so please do this brat a favor. You're aiming too high."

He evades several more black spikes  _ (a small body has its merits) _ , then falls into long bouts with the weapon until Akutagawa begins to slow down. It's rather interesting to see the teen's control slip bit by bit, trickling like sand in an hourglass. The weapon—Rashomon, as the teen calls it—pauses at where a sharp cough could be heard and resumes with loss precision.

"That one was too fast," he says, "You're not a long-ranged fighter, are you?"

"Tch."

From behind a wall ahead, a black-haired teen charges at Kakashi. Rashomon's fangs surrounding him, ready to pounce.

With a sharp intake of air, Kakashi leaps, knife in hand. It would be easy to let the fight drag on until it reaches a satisfying ending for the both of them, to let the black-haired teen exhaust any sense of stamina while Kakashi only dodges. Maybe even trying to show more struggle. A slow melody that builds into an orchestra's crescendo. 

Kakashi doesn't, he refuses. It was far too easy to let it play out that way, let Akutagawa have the peace of mind that he stood a chance. Thinking that way was too risky of a gamble, and Kakashi  _ knows _ the type to never call defeat like textbook. Pouring oil over a fire was the last thing he needed.

As quickly as possible, he weaves past a slowing Rashomon. Eyes in the color of dying suns narrowed at grey ones and for a second, the grey eyes paused.

( _ Decades of memories of forming signs that do nothing in this place are ignored.) _

It gives Kakashi an opening he exploits to the fullest. With a kick to the neck that sends Akutagawa to his knees, the fight was as good as over.

A part of him fights an urge call upon lightning the sound of a thousand birds, to pull down a headband that isn't there. Instead, he steps past a too tired boy with enough seething to burn an ocean and make his way back to the tiny room on the edge of the slums.

For a moment, Kakashi allows himself a piece of mind.

_ (A mistake.) _

Letting his shoulders slump and his gaze wander ( _ another mistake) _ . Kakashi remembers a hand, then—

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> akutagawa, my angry child worms himself into every possible scene. Kakashi refers to dazai by his full name out of pettiness and Ango is tired
> 
> Kakashi: in the shinobi world, you all wouldn't last longer than
> 
> constructive criticism is welcomed and thank you for the comments and kudos on the last ch


	3. this cry means one thing (frontlines need you today)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kakashi meets a man in high towers with a deal he can't reject

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> kakashi is *this* close to yeeting someone

Kakashi wakes up, bound to a chair. The first thought that came to mind was ' _ Iwa'  _ and their chambers with too high walls and too much rust. Then to the too humid, too clean rooms with smiles holding too much glee of Kiri.

But no.

Because he no longer lives in the world of kunai and Hidden Villages at each other's throats. No longer in the world where cerulean eyes and sunshine hair or spinning pinwheel eyes or hands that heal with light green glows or the names written on a stone lies.

There are things that never change, though. Worming your way out of ropes was one of the first things they teach you in war—unless those suicide ANBU tablets in your jaw were preferable.

It was a rookie mistake to leave your prisoner, unconscious or not, in ropes without supervision. Even the most cartoonishly incompetent of missing nin knew this. 

The door was unlocked and Kakashi fights a snicker. Perhaps it was a trap, not too uncommon of a tactic in the Warring Era. If so, he doubts their rationale.

Differences lie in the execution and technicalities borne of Yamanaka mind games and long hostage traditions. Academy level rope tying is bad form. It's practically an insult to the prisoner and a glaring red sign to whatever the captor plans.

There are guards posted at the end of the hallway in black suits and those not-Before-like weapons in hand. They're trained, he can say that much, from the way they hold themselves to the way they scanned their surroundings. It doesn't remove the impression from the unlocked doors and Academy level rope tying, though.

Dodging them was difficult, but not to the point combat was required. Being a scrawny, underweight boy has its advantages, after all.

In the grand scheme of things, he should've thought it through just a bit more  _ (because it was your fault they died) _ . Too much time spent nitpicking. 

So he's apprehended once more, this time with more struggle than the last. Satisfaction bubbles up his chest when he looks back at the collateral damage when he's done. It's multiplied when a man in glasses laments how much work this would be to clean up.

The lights look familiar though.

A short red-haired man passes through with clicking shoes and an awful hat. Their eyes meet for the slightest second and Kakashi hears quickened footsteps. He doesn't know whether to feel the slightest pity for such a person or laugh.

They blindfold him, a competent decision for once. Heavy handcuffs were placed on him and by the sound of footsteps, there should be six surrounding him. He is taken up an elevator, then a long hallway, then another elevator. When they stopped, it was before a large doorway that creaks open. 

“Sir, I brought the boy,” a man’s strained voice announces.

The blindfold was taken off by rough hands.

Kakashi faces a man in black behind a furnished mahogany desk. Oh, so  _ this  _ was what meeting Danzo felt like all those years ago, meeting the Yondaime Mizukage at the height of Chigiri.

_ (You are Hatake Kakashi, you are ANBU Hound.) _

The man smiles, one perfectly calculated to let a child lose his guard while the man scans Kakashi’s small frame like he was the new set gardening shears they brought at a bargain price. 

Kakashi looks at him with apathy the shades of whites. Information is power and they need nothing. Eyes and ears record every twitch of a muscle, every breath Kakashi takes.

"Welcome to Port Mafia, Nakajima Atsushi-kun," the man tilts his head, smiling, and it's a perfect mirror of Osamu Dazai's face. He reaches out his hands. "Mori Ougai."

Kakashi doesn't take it.

_ ("Councilman Shimura, what are you doing here," your voice is shaking and Tenzou's fist balls. _

_ The look on the bandaged face tells enough stories as it scans from you to Tenzou. Fingers drumming on a cane and ROOT Agent's lurk in the high ceilings.  _

_ "Nothing for you to concern yourselves with," Danzo said in low drawls, "Hatake-san… and Kinoe." _

'It's Tenzou,' _ you do not say. _

_ You meet the eye of the man in bandages. The man who'd lived through three wars and one the brink of the fourth and you are left with cold fury.) _

The guards in hiding show obvious shock and if that was Kakashi behind the desk they would've been sent back to training. Though the one behind the desk, Mori Ougai, only seemed amused  _ (that wasn't the right word for it) _ .

With a wave of a hand from, they were dismissed. It is quiet now.

"I do hope those guards aren't the best Port Mafia has to offer," Kakashi mutters sheepishly, meeting the man's upturned eyes.

Mori places his chin on the palms of his hands, "Their work is satisfactory." 

It was said with a kind of voice that brings trickling paranoia down spines. The pen resting beside the man gains new meaning as its polished shine glares at him.

"May I now return? Dazai-san is waiting," he slouches slightly, letting the disapproving gaze settle in.

Orange light covers them like a winter's blanket but bringing little warmth to Mori Ougai's face. Sharp edges make themselves more apparent like the creases beneath the man's eyes. It is late and he can safely deduce he's been inside this building for at least a day.

"Your  _ mentor _ has been briefed of the situation," Mori Ougai says it like an inside joke, "Now, let us get to the point of this conversation. I am a busy man."

"Oh? Shouldn't such important matters be discussed with my mentor? After all, I am a young child with no practical experience."

"Now, now, Dazai-san had full confidence in your abilities," perhaps if Kakashi continues like this, the man's sly grin would disappear itself. That would be something he desperately needs.

-

Akutagawa is being replaced.

How  _ dare  _ they replace him for brat whose arms could break faster than a twig. Port Mafia owes him too much  _ (a lie)  _ and for this brat to even come close to what he's attained was a delusion  _ (another lie) _ .

A brat is under Dazai-san now. A brat has his own flat with a fully restocked fridge and Dazai-san's approval and Dazai-san's interest and Dazai-san's coat. 

A brat without an Ability was to  _ teach  _ him. 

To teach the Akutagawa with more kills under his name than fifty percent of Port Mafia. To teach someone who could snap their neck at any moment, there was nothing to be taught.

Was this a test from Dazai-san? No matter, that brat has an attitude Akutagawa grinds his teeth from and that was enough reason to kill.

So when Dazai-san sent him to observe the brat on his first mission, Akutagawa plots. If Dazai-san finally sees how incompetent, worthless this brat is compared to him then he'll have the last laugh. There's no way an inexperienced kid could ever hope to complete an assassination under full daylight assigned to an executive.

He was wrong.

His eyes are the very witness as the blood trickle down the pavement.

There is ice through his veins and that, that was pathetic.

-

It was the plight of mortality, Kakashi soon realizes. That uncertainty of what lies beyond death. He's seen one instance, with his flickering soul as the test subject, another with foolish men who clung too tightly. They clung in the way those with power protecting their status like a mother and her dying child. When they let go, it's a tragedy in tandem with celebrations.

He's seen it with Madara, with Danzo, with Orochimaru. The Before was a perfect breeding ground for such things. This world is one too.

Mori Ougai was a mirror for too many things he had seen, of jaded men with endless ambitions. There is paranoia and there are a million scenarios of failure. This was one of them.

Kakashi had revealed more information then he liked or even was necessary to receive the minimum of results. It was enough for the man, and that was what counted. Kakashi could spill all the information about an orphanage with too cold cellars or roads that seemed to stretch on forever.

In a way, he was no different from the man. As a stand-in for a boy with sunshine hair to a world still nursing it's wound from a war with gods. Someone who handed suicide in the form of a file with calm demeanors. The deities of that world stopped watching and it is quiet that brings dread on its heels.

This world's deities, Kakashi doesn't know, and it's better that way. They are nothing but grief and ashes and salt roads.

Kakashi makes a deal with a man even less than a devil. Nakajima Atsushi is the one to pay and Danzo is clapping somewhere far off.

Strangely, he doesn't meet Osamu Dazai nor Akutagawa. It was their subordinates he meets, all in that exact shade of black. The headquarters is well-built, he can give them that. Kakashi remembers the hallways Sakaguchi Ango had led him through. Past twists, and turns, and false doors designed to swallow whole. 

The short red-haired man passes by once more and Kakashi makes note of the uneasy glance he gets. A guard bow at the sight of the man, the rest follow. Kakashi's eyes bore holes into his retreating back.

"I heard Nakahara— "

-

He keeps himself busy in the library, reading up on all this world has to offer. A passerby gives him strange looks, but Kakashi couldn't blame them. This was the nicer part of town where dirty, malnourished children in rags don't belong. 

It doesn't matter. The stares were something he's used to by now. Konoha was good at it after all.

The world here is more wondrous than what Sakaguchi could ever describe. Full and full of so many intricacies with more nuance than Kakashi dared to guess.

He could spend hours here,  _ days  _ if closing hours had not come—but Kakashi had never been one to follow the rules. There's an entrance to a dusty attic in the back that makes him hack and wheeze and battery-powered lamps. When the lights flicker off and staff members begin heading out, nobody finds him. 

Food was easy, the restaurant next door wasn't the most secure and customers do leave behind an awful lot of food. It seems nobody noticed the missing pillows either in the staff lounge.

Kakashi doesn't remember the last time sleep was this peaceful.

-

Akutagawa walks ahead as Kakashi was left to stumble past the alleyways. It's a time like these when he wishes he still holds chakra in his veins. The sun is beginning to sink, casting long shadows in orange light over the city.

"You're leading us into a trap."

There was no response from the black-haired teen. A phantom grip on Kakashi's arms just grows stronger. He doesn't speak anymore, hoping the silence could bring some sort of comfort typo the situation. It doesn't.

Eyes turn their gaze when Akutagawa walks by, voices hushed. A part of Kakashi is glad it wasn't directed at him.

"Dazai-san's words are absolute."

Oh, Kakashi should've known, there's only one instance where Akutagawa tolerates him. 

"Does it have anything to do with Nakahara-san?" no response as usual, "Or Mori-san?" 

Some scheme then, and the way Akutagawa twitches at Mori's name was enough of a tell. Breathing lightly, he ducks under haphazardly hung neon sign as the black-haired teen quickened his pace. 

When they arrive, it was in front of a seedy building in full display on the streets. There are drunk men galavanting about and scantily clad hosts laughing. It hits Kakashi then, exactly what kind of mission this was. His heart sinks to his stomach with a gulp. 

These kinds of missions require a delicacy to them, threading though red, neon lights with pursed lips. Akutagawa doesn't look so happy either, from the slight crease of his thin eyebrows.

It's not an assassination then, and Kakashi doesn't know if he should feel relief or no.

There's a promise that lingers in the air though. From a black-haired man sitting on top of a glass tower, sitting on top of fountains of blood. It reminds him of a snake, a sage who was never truly a sage, and he hopes it's simply imagination. 

He's met Nakahara, the man was kinder than this place could show. A stark contrast to the bandaged man's bravado. Placid winds shift ever so slightly the moment they shook hands.

A life like his, one of a knobby-boned orphan with no place to call home was a worthless existence to this world. Perhaps there are better ways to establish, make a name for himself without reliving that life. They're obs

Morality was murky waters, no matter how much Naruto tries. Kakashi holds on tight to the heavy black coat, ANBU Hound to the sheathed knives.

"Akutagawa-kun, slouching is bad for you."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this part is now complete!! I actually wanted it to be longer but it is what it is!
> 
> dark era arc is next in line!!
> 
> ALSO! I GOT ART AHHHHHHHHH LINK: https://twitter.com/uintuva/status/1164362381440487425?s=19

**Author's Note:**

> yell at me on twitter [here!](https://twitter.com/hoalianyas?s=09)
> 
> cue kakashi's melodramatic monologue. Also like this whole thing's loosely inspired by the victory series.


End file.
